"Kisi ne sahi kaha zindagi kutti cheez hai. You live life without a care in the world not realizing that life is building a heavy load of trash that it dumps on you one fine day, breaking your back." - saneless

This film is one which is on the border of parallel and commercial cinema---the pace and story of the movie is that of a commercial film but the acting and the lack of background music harks to art cinema .

In fact the film tries to straddle both sides---art and commercial cinema.....and the triumph of the director lies in the fact that it successfully combines both types of cinema . Without losing out on those aspects which will win it critical acclaim it also keeps the suspense alive and the pace fast , thus keeping the audience interested throughout .

Dr Ahmedi comes from the USA full of idealism to stop a state govt's pet project---a business park which will be built by removing the slums and shanties of people inhabiting the land earmarked for it .

Dr Ahmedi does not want the land to become another Shanghai.....
So what's the connection with Shanghai ??
For those who dont know , China's premiere port city of Shanghai was a city full of slums in the 1980s when China still practiced communism . When the Chinese govt decided to turn capitalistic , it decided that the rundown city needed a makeover . A gleaming new city was built on the former shantytowns---a city that was the envy of countries mired in socialism like India.....a city of glass towers , elegant roads , crisscrossing flyovers , shopping malls , business centers , restaurants , cafes , residential towers and whatnot . But what it hid was an ugly reality . Some 3 million ( yes , 30 lakhs ) of poor people formerly living there had been removed by brute force to the faraway countryside where they were forced to lead their uprooted lives by a brutal govt . They were forbidden to ever return to their ancestral Shanghai for fear that the presence of these poor dirty folk would make the city unclean and not only deter away foreign investors but would expose the harsh reality of the Chinese economic miracle .

But China is an exceptionally bloodstained communist dictatorship while India is a democratic nation where the poor man's voice can be heard.....or so Dr Ahmedi thinks......
How wrong can a man be ??!!
He has irked the powerful establishment which sees profits in thousands of crores endangered by his fiery speeches and his organizing of common people against the project---and pays for it with his life in the end.....

He leaves behind two women---his wife and another woman who loves him madly ( Played by Kalki Koechlin ).....and rather than the wife it is the woman in love who sets off in pursuit of those who tried to kill him . Its a pursuit which pits her against a range of powerful people and inevitably puts her own life in danger . And its only the mad passion of her love thats sustains her in a mission that would have weakened the resolve of the fainthearted......

But those who dare to help her like a video film maker who has a damning tape of those planning the murder are swiftly killed by the all-powerful establishment....and so she has to turn to an unlikely character for aid---the video film-maker's assistant , a buck toothed unsophisticated character played by Emraan Hashmi . And she has to hope that Krishnan ( played by Abhay Deol ) , the officer assigned by the govt to investigate the murder of Dr Ahmedi has a little bit of conscience---so he would resist the tremendous pressure on him to close the case and find out the real culprits . Kalki and Emraan themselves are hunted down by the goons who want them dead and have run from pillar to post in dramatic chases to save their skin .

So does Kalki succeed in finding out the killers of the man she loves so much ?? And what about the task of saving the poor peoples' houses for which Dr Ahmedi sacrifices so much ?
The movie has different answers for both.....

I have always been fascinated by royals---by Indian maharajas and maharanis and Nawabs and begums and Badshahs and Shehenshahs and foreign Kings and queens and princes and princesses . Whenever I travel I have mostly heritage holidays---of magnificent palaces and mighty forts which hide many a story of triumphs and tragedies and battles and intrigues and conspiracies .

.....So whatever the press was saying about it ( the film has got terrible reviews ) I was hardly going to miss out on seeing a film on Diana---the beautiful and tragic princess .

The title of the film is ' Diana '---a grandiose title that makes one think that it is a biographical film about the entire life of the princess .

Actually it is about the affairs she had after she discovered ( actually long after she discovered ) that her husband loved another woman and she wouldn't be able to receive his love ever . More specifically , it is about her affair with a Pakistani born heart surgeon---Dr Hasnat Khan . It purports to show Hasnat as the true love of her life ; a person she not only loved but also wanted to marry to the extent that she actually traveled to Lahore in Pakistan to meet his family and more specifically his mother in order to get their approval for the marriage .

Obviously , this is a downgradation and the film about Diana is reduced to a film on her love affairs.

Aha !! Now I can understand what caught the critics' goat---especially the British ones....and very rightly too...

Coming to the film itself , it shows Diana as a woman who is in search of true love ( if you permit me to use a cliche ) , and wants a man who is entirely hers without any hindrances .

Is Hasnat Khan that man ??

Knowing south asian and more specifically muslim culture all too well , I can safely say that he isn't....
Not only his religion is uncompromisingly different , but it's not easy in south asia to accept a mother of two sons as the bride of a bachelor.
Even worse , his mother remembers the horror of Pakistan's partition from India ( one million people were killed in a bloodbath during partition ) and blames the departing British rulers for it---Diana's people....

Yet Diana is blissfully unaware of all this in the beginning , and she is the one who initiates the affair . And it leads to secret rendezvous in misty hills and incognito ( with Diana wearing a black wig ) meetings in romantic cafes . And naturally , to passionate sessions on silken sheets....

And Diana is in love....
Your heart does go out to the beautiful princess whose husband rejected her love and left her searching for it....

She even uses her connections to get Hasnat a job in Boston in America so that together they would escape to build a love nest there....
There are tiffs and quarrels between the two and each time Hasnat tries to break off , Diana is the one who makes up with him to the extent of chasing him and standing below his apartment calling out his name like an ordinary woman and then cleaning his apartment like one !!
Man....did this stunningly beautiful and ( most importantly ) rich woman actually do this for a guy ?? Can't believe....

But can a heart surgeon concentrate on his task if he is constantly surrounded by paparazzi and is constantly being photographed ?? No....

Like all good things , the affair has to come to an end....

Amidst all this , where are her husband and children ??
The director makes the horrendous mistake of showing them all too briefly , and concentrate only on her affairs .

However when the affair with Hasnat breaks , you do feel for Diana and acting by Naomi Watts in the breakup scene does produce an effect on you .

The affair with Egyptian Dodi Al Fayed is shown to be on the rebound , and by this time Diana has learnt to use the press and photographers to her advantage . Diana is not shown to be too emotionally attached to him . Is this a deliberate ploy to make Hasnat ( played by Naveen Andrews ) appear as the ' hero ' of the film ?? I dont know.....

To be politically incorrect , one does wonder about her choice of muslim men rather than men from her own culture .

But it all ends in a car crash which is not shown ( mercifully ) and like Dr Hasnat Khan we are all left with her memories.....

To be honest I was filled with pathos at the end , and when I feel this way I can't say that a movie is bad....

Docji, bulk of your take on Shanghai is more like an extension of theme than the review. While, it is interesting, the film guys dont seem to be following that. The film does not mention the background of Shanghai.That is because out Left wing intellectuals are still fond of Chinese.

It seems more inspired by what RR Patil was trying till he got stopped by Margaret Alva, Gurudas Kamat and co.

My 3 liner on the movie.
It starts as 'development vs livelihood' and this Ahmedi character in an NRI Medha Patkar.
There is a murder and investigation goes on with whole puzzle coming together in last few minutes.
A 'Political Thriller' Slow, but decent performance by Supriya Pathak and Abhay Deol as Madrasi and picks up speed in the end.

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This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends,only permanent interests. - Some Firang

Diana was on Netflix. Docji has told all about it. Except that there is Art Malik giving some gyaan in a small scene to Naveen Andrews. His character is showed as 'Samundar'. But is suspect, it was Imran Khan. any other thinks the same.

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This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends,only permanent interests. - Some Firang

Back to the world of psychos stalking the people whom they obsessively want to possess....

But this time it's a woman who does the stalking ( then why wasn't I the one being stalked )....

And the one being stalked is Mr Rohan Achrekar a.k.a. Ronnie---played by Karanvir Sharma....

He comes as a paying guest to the outhouse in Goa of Maya ( played by Mannara ) of sumptuous body fame....

She misunderstands some photos he took of her , and hey presto !! That's all she requires to fall in love with him---obsessively of course.....now where was I when these obsessively stalking babes were being created ??

She befriends him and then entices him by prancing wet and wild in front of him---with her melons coming almost completely out of her wet clothes.....

But to no avail....unlike me ( both my heart and vitals were responding heavily to the enticement ) , his heart and his vitals seem to be made of unresponsive stuff....

He instead dances with someone else at a party he came to with Maya ....

And that some else ( her name is Nancy ) gets collided with the same vehicle that Ronnie and Maya are travelling in that very night---is this a mere coincidence or is Maya upto her tricks....??

But Nancy ( the girl who got killed ) was also sister of Ronnie's ex girlfriend.....and his ex grilfriend ( Riya---played by Shraddha Das ) stands to inherit a lot of money and property due to her death....

So who was really involved in her death ??

Who cares ?? For the entry of Shraddha Das brings another sexy babe into the sensuous proceedings.....and then the proceedings get way too sensuous....

Red hot kissing scenes are accompanied by lip smacking smooching and breast heaving and wanton loving making on satin sheets....Needless to say , I had shamelessly come to the theater to see these things only.....

These proceedings ( I sorely wished that they hadn't been interrupted ) are interrupted by some dead bodies piling up , including those of animals....

As if I care about the piling dead bodies ?? I don't....I had come for one thing only---to see some action in bed from some half nude babes and I got that....

So who is responsible for the dead bodies piling up ?? Not worth going to the theater for that....

Of course , Goa does look nice and green in the monsoon....

And the music of the film is good too---some nice hummable songs....

Acting by all three lead actors ( Karanvir Sharma , Mannara , and Shraddha Das ) is decent enough....

But the nice views and nice songs and decent acting do little to save the film---for the twist in the climax is so stupid that it washes away even an okayish impression of the film .

You go to theater for only one thing----some nice exposure of feminine flesh , and some hot bed scenes....
I went for that and returned home satisfied.....You won't...

Zid
...You go to theater for only one thing----some nice exposure of feminine flesh , and some hot bed scenes....I went for that and returned home satisfied.....You won't...

Verdict---Not good .

Saala, not good bolta hai... look at his description of the movie... look at how satisfied he returned home... and then he says not good. Not good. What tf Akayla akayla mazhe loot na chahata hai... you have some problems with us coming home satisfied

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"Kisi ne sahi kaha zindagi kutti cheez hai. You live life without a care in the world not realizing that life is building a heavy load of trash that it dumps on you one fine day, breaking your back." - saneless

Saala, not good bolta hai... look at his description of the movie... look at how satisfied he returned home... and then he says not good. Not good. What tf Akayla akayla mazhe loot na chahata hai... you have some problems with us coming home satisfied

He means his female admirers won't like the movie.

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This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends,only permanent interests. - Some Firang

Yesterday I had gone on a pilgrimage---pilgrimage to get a sighting...actually numerous sightings...of the sex goddess , Sunny Leone....

And this devotee of the sex goddess returned home blessed , for the goddess had smiled upon him....
Not only she had smiled , but she had heaved and panted with her breasts coming up and down in low cut blouses , she had entwined her legs around various men and writhed in orgasm , and she had danced showing her bare thighs and bare belly and deep navel like a heavenly damsel....

And this devotee had come close to the high altar of the sex goddess---actually I had got a seat close to the screen....so this devotee had a magnificent view of the perfect contours of her body....the breasts seemed like mountains and the navel like a deep valley when the huge screen was so near to me....

And she looked like a dream , she really did....so much so that I am dreaming of having wet dreams of her , of me worshipping her magnificent mountains and deep valleys in person at least in the dreams....oh goddess , please come in my dreams....

But do you know when she looked the most divine ?? When she was wearing a simple salwar kameez !! With red lipstick and a demure expression on her face !! Looking glorious with red bindi and simple makeup !! I wish I could have taken her to my mother in that form !! Mother would have approved of her....blush blush !!

What else do you want ?? The story !!
Well , it consists of Sunny flying down from London to Jaisalmer in India to come face to face with her past life---a life when she loved a man ( Rajneesh Duggal ) and became ready to pose for his mentor ( Rahul Dev ) who wanted to carve her statue in stone , so beautiful was she....
But the mentor began to lust for her...who wouldn't....

That is the past life....But who is the singer ( Jay Bhanushali ) who has come in this life and gets tortured visions of beatings by Rahul Dev in this life ?? And who is really the prince she has fallen in love with in this life ( played by Mohit Ahlawat ) ?? And his rival prince ( Jas Arora ) who openly lusts for her and who also has a property dispute with Mohit ??

Phew !! So many men !! That is Sunny Leone for you !!....no I am not gonna take her to meet my mother---that programme is cancelled !!

So in the midst of all these men and Sunny what happens ?? And how come the past and present lives of Sunny and these men are intertwined ??
Watch the movie for that !!

What you get is an extravaganza of colour in the desert---Sunny leone cavorting in stunning dresses and dancing and prancing on the sands and in the palaces of Rajasthan....even the parched desert will become wet after seeing Sunny Leone the way our dreams become wet....
The photography is good and music is even better , giving visual and sonic entertainment....

What else do you want ?? Well , one wants some good acting which is missing ; and one would like someone to dub in hindi for Sunny....for her hindi is too english accented ; and one would like some good storyline---all of which is sadly missing....
The ending especially is insipid....

But who cares !! The pilgrim had reached his destination , and had been rewarded with a vision ( numerous visions actually ) of the sex goddess....
And the pilgrim had returned home a satisfied man....

Now if you are such a pilgrim of Sunny Leone , then and only then will you return home satisfied....
Otherwise , the curse of the sex goddess will be upon you....for the film ain't that good....you will feel your money wasted....
So to not waste your money , why don't you become her devotees like me ??

And like Gandhi he led his people to freedom crossing numerous obstacles along the way , and like Gandhi he preached forgiveness and reconciliation with the oppressor at the end of it all.....

And he went on to rule the very nation that had once kept him in chains.....

And when he had finished with politics , he sat down to write his autobiography---' Long walk to freedom '....

And it was a truely long and slow walk---27 years he had to spend in jail....

But with every passing year he spent in jail , he more and more became an icon for those who believed in freedom and liberty and justice and equality.....

Naturally , his autobiography became fodder for a film....

The actor chosen to fill the mighty shoes of Mandela on celluloid is Idris Elba , who has put a commanding performance of a heroic figure.....

Even better I thought was the performance of Naomi Harris as Winnie Mandela , wife of Nelson---for she has played perfectly the role of a woman bowled over by his personality in her younger years and who throws herself bodily into the anti apartheid struggle after he is arrested and keeps the flame and his name alive for his followers while he is in jail , only to grow distant from him in his old age.....

Of course , she is not his first wife ; his first wife is a more ordinary woman who lacks the passion and personality of Winnie and leaves him having got tired of his involvement in the anti apartheid struggle and the enormous risks it carries.....
That is however not the only reason why his first wife leaves him , for he is prone to have numerous sexual relationships with other women on the sly and she is distressed by them---the film is not shy to probe into the grey areas in his personality and expose the more negative aspects of it.....

And who is he in the beginning ?? He is son of the advisor to chief of Xhosa tribe , and has a carefree childhood spent in the grasslands of rural South Africa---a childhood whose happy memories would give him strength in the hard days ahead.....

He comes to the big city to become a lawyer , and his brilliance in the courtroom attracts the leaders of the ANC ( African national congress ).....
It doesn't take long for him to grow in stature and become a leader , and also attract many girlfriends....

In the beginning he is all for following a non violent ideology against the white government of South Africa , but as the repression and violence of the racist government grows he drops the nonviolence and tilts towards violence in the form of bombings of government owned sites.....

Naturally he becomes a marked man and has to move from place to place until he is finally caught brought before a judge....

So what transpires in the trial that follows ??
How does he inspire his people by his bearing and actions in court ??
How does he spend his long years in captivity ??

Watch the film for the answers.....

To be honest , I thought the movie lacked the fire and the passion that should have been evoked in our hearts by the long fight against inequality and against oppression of whites on blacks....

Problem is---Mandela has had a long life and the film tries to show all events in his life from his childhood till his becoming President of South Africa....
And in the process of putting all this in a film , every event has to be given only a limited number of minutes....
There are no dramatic moments shown at all in his long stint in jail , and the few dramatic moments outside are provided by his wife Winnie Mandela....

Or maybe that is the fault of his real life personality , he being a gentle and forgiving person rather than a person for a flair for drama unlike his flamboyant wife Winnie....

Of course , there are some emotional scenes---he meeting his daughter for the first time after 11 years in jail to find out that she has grown up , and he and his wife being allowed to touch and embrace each other only after 24 years....

But Mandela's forgiveness comes handy big time , when violence spirals out of control in South Africa and the country's white rulers decide that it is time to deal with him in order to bring and end to the violence---because Mandela promises and is above all the only one with the stature to carry out the promise that there will be no revenge on whites after power has been handed over to blacks....

And he fulfills his promise and allows those very whites who had unleashed tyranny on his people to live peacefully as normal citizens after he comes to power---a thing only a born statesman can accomplish.....

Verdict on the film---
I dreamt of seeing a film that was great as Mandela himself , but it wasn't that great....
Still it is a very decent effort .

I haven't read Salman Rushdie's much acclaimed novel . And after seeing the movie , I dont feel much like wanting to read it either .

No , dont misunderstand me---the novel is probably as great as people say it is , but the movie does not make you feel like reading it if you have not read it earlier .

But there is a juicy part to it , and that lies in the uncensored depiction of the emergency foisted upon the nation by Prime minister Indira Gandhi . Its all there shown in its ugly reality---the mass sterlizations , the destruction of peoples' lives by destroying their slums.....
One wonders how come the censors allowed it to be shown without cuts in a Congress ruled India . Or maybe the emergency has now become a story of the distant past and can be shown comfortably to people without making a dent in the ruling party's vote bank....

The movie itself is long and tedious---it tells the incredibly convoluted story of the birth and the life of Saleem Shinai . Apart from the hugely complicated story of how he came into being , what is important is that he is a midnight's child---that is , a child born on the exact moment when India achieved its independence at the stroke of the midnight hour on 15 August 1947.....and in Rushdie's novel and the movie too , midnight's children are shown to have special powers . Even though they are away from each other , they can communicate with each other . And some of them are capable of magic....

Naturally , great things are expected from them . But as the movie progresses , we see that they are not capable of doing much . And their lives themselves undergo tragedies and misfortunes.....

It is in the end that you realise it---that the midnight's children represent India itself , or maybe the whole subcontinent , since part of the movie is situated in Pakistan and Bangladesh . And the failure of the expectations that they raised by being born on independence midnight and having magical powers is the failure of the expectations raised by the independence of the nations born in august 1947.....

But things are not so bad.....
The very fact that some of them , especially Saleem Shinai have survived inspite of all the misfortunes which litter their lives ( and the misfortunes which have littered the history of the subcontinent ) shows their capacity for survival....
And above all , there is hope for the future !! For their children have inherited their powers and if they learn from the mistakes of their parents , then their futures could be brighter.....meaning of course , that the author hopes that next generation of Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis learn from past mistakes of their forefathers and build a better tommorrow.....

If you are an Indian , there's something that may warm the cockles of your heart---for Saleem Shinai is not shown to be happy in Pakistan and his face glows up only when he reaches India.....
.....And your heart may grow warmer if you are a Mumbaikar ( like I am ) for ultimately Saleem wants to live in Bombay.....
Or maybe it is Rushdie's heart speaking---for he was born and raised in Bombay......

The movie begins in Kashmir---the flashpoint of the subcontinent....and it moves from one historical event to another , from the famous speech that Nehru gave on independence to the coup of the Pakistan military that made it a military dictatorship to the 1965 war to the birth of Bangladesh to the emergency.....

The photography and camerawork is good . But you are left wishing that the movie was the same.....